Gold Sparkles
by kaededainetohru
Summary: George is feeling lost in the world with the death of his brother and doesn't want anyone to help him find his way. Especially not Destinee Lovegood, Luna's half french cousin. But he needs her for his store...
1. Prologue

Gold Sparkles

Prologue

In the distance, an owl hooted. He looked at her sleeping form. She would always be the only one for him. Forever. But he couldn't be the one for her. She was just too beautiful for him. She deserved someone better, much better.

With one last glance at her rolled up in his bed, he turned and walked down the stairs and out the door and out into the world, away from his world.


	2. Worry Much?

Chapter 1:

Everyone was in his parents' house, celebrating something new. A baby? A birthday? An engagement? He knew it wasn't a wedding because someone would have asked him to be in the wedding party or provide something from his shop for them. Who knew what people cared about anymore? He didn't care about anything, and he found that to be most suitable for his emotions. Caring hurt, no matter how you went around it.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts; he jumped when Harry sat down on the couch next to him. As soon as George realized who it was, he felt guilty. George wanted to feel lonely and lost but it was near impossible when Harry Potter came and sat next to him. Harry had gone through ten times what George had. Harry had lost his entire family, many of his friends, and he had even died. But still, Harry was the one who had saved the world from the terror of Voldemort. George had no right depressing over his brother, his best friend. Yet, he did.

"George, you are never going move on if you don't talk to other people. Sitting here, wishing he was still alive, not doing anything else, is not going to help. _At_ _all_. Come with me. I want you to meet someone." Harry didn't wait for an agreement from George. He pulled him up and began dragging him into the next room. George went along with it because there was nothing else he could do, despite hexing Harry and that wouldn't be the smartest thing to do.

"Who am I meeting? Why am I meeting this person?" George figured talking was better than just following someone.

"You're meeting Luna's cousin. She's here for the engagement party. She's going to be Luna's Maid of Honor since Luna didn't want to choose between Hermione and Ginny."

"Luna's getting married? To whom?" So that's why everyone was here. It was an engagement party.

"Merlin's beard, George! Don't you even pay attention to the parties you're invited to? _Neville_! They have been seeing each other for almost a year! This is why you need to

stop moping!" Harry looked shocked that George didn't know… anything.

"Her name is Destinee. Her mother is Xenophilius' second cousin, or something. Her father is French. I think her father might be a Muggle but I'm not sure. The French are rather mysterious people, in my opinion. She's two years older than Luna but she would have been in our year at Hogwarts. She wants to live in England. In France she worked with her other cousin in a… joke shop." Harry said "joke shop" slowly as if he didn't really want to tell George this but he couldn't see any other way to let him know. Harry stopped to gauge George's reaction.

George finally understood where this was all going. Harry wanted George to give Luna's undoubtedly strange cousin a job so she could live in England. Harry wanted to repay Luna for everything she had ever done for him and figured the best way to do that was to secure a job for her cousin with George. And Harry thought George needed help in his joke shop even though George kept telling him he _wanted_ to be a workaholic.

"Harry. I think I've told you before, only if someone came along who was a bloody amazing inventor would I even think about hiring them. Only if they were Ivar Möring, or Pembroke O'Deorain or Afton Lefevre would I even look at them. And those people don't need a little joke shop in Diagon Alley to be successful." Then, with horror, George realized he had just snapped at Harry. He barely ever used to get angry. George sighed and turned away from Harry's searching eyes. "Look, Harry, if it makes you feel better, I'll meet her." George could almost feel Harry's grin vibrating off of him.

Then they walked into the room with everyone in it and George felt like someone had punched him in the gut. Here were all the people he loved and he had been ignoring them so he could sit in his lonesome and despair. A year after his brother's death and he had still been ignoring the rest of them. A year! It felt strange to walk into a crowd of people he usually would have been terrorizing. But he didn't falter all as much as he wanted to run back to his couch. He couldn't. Harry was right. He needed to talk to people, socialize or he would never let his brother's memory rest.

Harry was pulling him over to a very pregnant Fleur who was talking to a girl with almost as white blond as her hair was. This girl was shorter, less Veela-like, but she still had George's heart thumping. Her eyes weren't blue, but a very rich chocolate brown. George recognized the signs and realized that if this was Destinee, she was most definitely _not_ working for him. He did not need romance and he wouldn't be able to resist this woman.

George looked at Harry and Harry laughed. George's face, a look of confusion, resistance and curiosity. "Destinee. If I may cut in?" Harry, the ever polite diplomat, drew Fleur aside with a wicked gleam in his eye, leaving George the only person in the room to talk to Destinee. Leaving George with a very awkward situation.

"Hello. You must be one of the Weasleys. I have heard of your hair. Fleur is hoping that her baby will not have the Red Hair of the Weasleys because red does '_not_ help her in any ozer way but to scare off those very strange Eenglish men'." George had to laugh at this odd French woman's perfect impression of Fleur. She had it down to the expression of haughty frustration, even.

"Yes, I am George Weasley. You are Destiny, correct?"

"_Non_!" Her sharp comment made George jump. "You Eenglish are always getting ze name wrong! It eez _not _Destin_y_! It is Destin_ee_! In French, two e's are pronounced like your a. Destin_ee_!" In her distress, her French accent came through her usually perfect English.

Now she was pacing the room in circles throwing her hands up and speaking very fast in French. George's other self watched in horror as her reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. "Bloody hell, Destinee! Please, do not have a heart attack over stupid English pronunciation. I'm sorry that us English have our heads up our arses but you don't have to go into a rage over it. Just, just calm down." Then before he realized it he pulled her to the nearest couch and pushed her down. "Coffee? Tea? A bloody shot of whiskey?" He was going into that rare protective mode of his and he was powerless to try to stop it.

Without waiting for an answer he went and poured a cup of his mother's strong tea and brought it steaming back to heron a tray with milk and a bowl with lumps of sugar in it. Then looking at her, he waited.

"Um. No milk please, just two. Of the sugar I mean. Just two of the sugar." She hated being flustered, but she hadn't been fussed over since she had splinched in her first try of the Apparation test. She was horrid at things like that but potions and inventing new tricks was a snap.

In a mood that he couldn't seem to shake, George obeyed her and thrust the cup at her, the tea sloshing dangerously near the edge. Then, still seeing her cheeks red (now from embarrassment, something he didn't know) he went to find a blanket to try to warm her up – or something.

When he was finally satisfied that she was comfortable and not upset anymore he sat down next to her. She was gaping at him and he was feeling very stupid. They sat in silence until Destinee broke the tension, "Worry much?" She was still looking at him in awe but he smiled a little before answering.

"I have this very unfortunate need to coddle anyone who is stressing or sick or hurt. I'm too much like my mother, I guess. When I was ten, Fred –" He broke off. _Too deep, George, _he told himself. _Too much information. _But, the next moment he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. He almost jumped, but scolded himself for the reaction instead.

"Luna told me about your brother, Fred. She told me that it is you who has taken this most hard. She told me that you do not ever take a day off at work. This is part of the reason I am here. I know maybe you do not want help, you like throwing yourself into work. But, I think that with only two of us in your shop we will be very busy all the same. That is how –" She stopped for a moment before taking a deep breath. "That is how it was before André died." Then she turned from George to wipe her eyes. She would _not _cry for her losses here in front of this very lost man. She had been watching him for weeks and the only time he hadn't looked completely out of this world was when he had been furiously taking care of her.

"I would like to stay in London with Luna; we were great friends in our child years. The only thing I am any good at that is worth writing down is potions and counting out supplies bores me to – what is the English expression? – oh yes. It bores me to tears. I worked in a little joke shop in France with – with André, inventing things and selling them to other corporations. I think I made a name for myself but I never really looked into it. If you would even think about taking me on, I would be very grateful. I – I know how it is to lose someone very close to you and to not want to share the workload." Then she stood up and left without another word in the direction of the loo.

George had a million and one reasons to reject her, one of which was that she was just too desirable to not want her. Something her didn't want to deal with right now. And there were more. He didn't know her, it might be a scam, it might be a ruse to get him back into the social world. Anything. And they were all good reasons. He could turn her down for any of them. But.

But when he saw her face, saw the look of wonder when she talked about inventions, the look of hurt when she talked of André, the look of hope when she talked of living in England with Luna, there was no possible way anyone with a heart could turn down her request.

So when she came back, he was standing and he reached out to shake her hand. "Welcome to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Miss Destinee."


End file.
